Energy Comes from the Sun, Wind, and Earth in This Vermont LEED Platinum Home

Charlotte, VT

Mar 23 2009 By Jesa Damora | 17 comments

TIME-TESTED SHAPES, MATERIALS, AND COMPONENTS. This home may have many "new" parts, but few would be unfamiliar to native Vermonters. The high-tech wind turbine is merely a more efficient example of the innovative machinery that has sustained remote farms for more than 100 years. Wide, cooling porches, steep, snow-shedding roofs, and a floor plan that encourages cross-ventilation are details that local residents have long understood as sensible ways to deal with the seasons. Metal roofing and siding are common in northern New England because they are durable and easy to install.

Water Efficiency

Indoor Air Quality

Green Materials and Resource Efficiency

Most of existing 14,000-square-foot riding arena building relocated and reused locally

Created access to community open space and trails

Innovative septic system by Presby Enviroseptic: filtration tubing contains coarse fabric with ridges and perforations laid out over leaching field

FSC-certified decking (Cumaru)

Most materials locally sourced

Reclaimed fir columns

Recycled materials (denim) in insulation

Certification

LEED for Homes: platinum (90 points)Energy Star score: 5+ stars

Multiple renewable-energy sources help a Vermont home built with more or less conventional methods reach net-zero-energy use

To build a house with no carbon emissions and zero-net-energy use, the owners of this rural home in Vermont employed a strategy embracing alternative energy sources, unusually high insulation values, and conscientious fabrication.

Start with a good team and a purpose
David Pill is an architect, so he and his wife Hillary went into this project with a head start. They retained builder Jim Huntington, who had experience building energy-efficient homes and is himself a designer. Schooled in self-sustaining and socially responsible lifestyle choices, they wanted to purchase materials locally, recycle, and reuse as often as possible. Something creative would also have to be done with a derelict 14,000-square-foot covered riding arena on the 44-acre plot.

That they were successful in meeting their goals might be measured by a net gain in electricity — 192 kWh in 2008, several notable awards, and designation as the first LEEDLeadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED for Homes is the residential green building program from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). While this program is primarily designed for and applicable to new home projects, major gut rehabs can qualify.
Platinum home in the state. It might also be measured by how great the place feels to live in.

Matching their plan to their needs
David points out that before they did anything else, they hired Andy Shapiro, an energy consultant, to model a best-case scenario, including orientation, passive solar design, massing, surface area, structural square footage, thermal massHeavy, high-heat-capacity material that can absorb and store a significant amount of heat; used in passive solar heating to keep the house warm at night.
, envelope design, glazingWhen referring to windows or doors, the transparent or translucent layer that transmits light. High-performance glazing may include multiple layers of glass or plastic, low-e coatings, and low-conductivity gas fill., air tightness, mechanical systems, lighting, and appliances. They then weighed possible building strategies from technical perspectives, as well as an important programmatic one — the family of four, including two children, would be spending most of their time living and working here. They settled on the premise of an ultra-efficient all-electric house (including appliances) to keep the design simple and the fuel source unified. To implement this, they commissioned a wood-frame house and installed a 10-kW net-metered wind turbine.

Local vernacular makes sustainable sense
On a sunny day the temperature of the 2,700-square-foot interior doesn’t drop below 70°F, even when it's –10°F outside and the heat is turned off. Air conditioning is completely unnecessary in summer; the home's ample thermal mass keeps it cool, and a few open windows upstairs send breezes through the house. Simple, but not austere, one wing is highlighted by fir columns reclaimed from a local mill, and the warmth of the locally made maple cabinetry throughout is enhanced by bright rugs and natural finishes.

The two-story house is laid out as two intersecting rectangles — one sided in painted cedar and the other in corrugated Galvalume. The look recasts the forms and textures of an agricultural heritage with clean, modern ease. The steep pitch of the standing seam metal roof sheds the heavy Vermont snows, and the large wrap-around screened porch is well used during long summer days. The wind turbine, 400 feet from the house, is barely audible.

There’s a chicken coop out back, also built to sustainable specs; a new apple orchard; and a vegetable garden. And the riding arena? It was bought by neighbors, disassembled, and reconstructed elsewhere.

Four important things
While the turbine and the ground-source heat pumpHome heating and cooling system that relies on the mass of the earth as the heat source and heat sink. Temperatures underground are relatively constant. Using a ground-source heat pump, heat from fluid circulated through an underground loop is transferred to and/or from the home through a heat exchanger. The energy performance of ground-source heat pumps is usually better than that of air-source heat pumps; ground-source heat pumps also perform better over a wider range of above-ground temperatures. (GSHP) get a lot of attention as new and exciting technologies, David has a list of things he finds just as important. Number one: solar orientation, a "no-brainer,” says David. The house is long and narrow along the true east-west axis, with simple massing.

Number two is to spend as much of the budget as possible on the shell. This one is superinsulated (EPS, denim batting, polyisocyanurate foam, and dense-packed cellulose), achieving R-values up to 58 and mitigating thermal bridgingHeat flow that occurs across more conductive components in an otherwise well-insulated material, resulting in disproportionately significant heat loss. For example, steel studs in an insulated wall dramatically reduce the overall energy performance of the wall, because of thermal bridging through the steel.
. The house has been fastidiously caulked to seal the envelope. Ultra-efficient fiberglass windows employ orientation-specific glazing: South-facing glazing allows more solar gain; the north-facing windows are more insulating.

Number three is short and sweet: “Find a builder before designing the house," says David. "You want to work simultaneously with your contractor to create an integrated plan. Otherwise, you’ll be trying to retrofit a design after the fact” and, thus, coping with cost overruns.

Finally, number four is to “get the projected energy loads down as low as possible in the design process, so you’re not trying to overcome them later on.” Combine efforts. The GSHP, powered by a variable-speed drive, pumps water from a well that also provides drinking water. A GFX waste hot water heat recovery unit and highest-efficiency lighting and appliances further reduce energy usage. Several devices track energy use and efficiency: a wind data logger from NRG systems; a kWh meter on the turbine; a BTUBritish thermal unit, the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water (about a pint) one degree Fahrenheit in temperature—about the heat content of one wooden kitchen match. One Btu is equivalent to 0.293 watt-hours or 1,055 joules.
meter and kWh meter on the heat pump controls; and a meter for hot water usage.

Lessons Learned

David wanted to push the economy of building the structure, so they used two-stud corners (with nailers), minimal framing for window headers, and a two-foot module for all dimensions. He thought of using a single plate and skipping the exterior sheathing, using lateral bracing instead, But Jim advised strongly against these last two, even though they are increasingly recognized as advanced framing techniques. David’s glad he listened, as winds can plow down the valley with vigor.
Because the owners went for all the bells and whistles in the GSHP assembly, installation took a lot of time, as did programming the drive that manages it. They’ll probably never use the extra lines in the radiant heat manifold that stub to the second floor — the house stays comfy from what’s in the first floor slab alone. They'll also never use the blocking in the walls for brises-soleil — it stays cool without it.

Heating system choices offer challenges and opportunites
They also want prospective alternative energy users to carefully assess the apparent cost of new technologies in context: For instance, “If you already have a well you can use [for the GSHP] and are already doing a radiant floor, the cost of it might be not much more than a standard boiler," David advises. "The benefit of a boiler is that you can put in relatively inexpensive baseboard, which itself is less costly than radiant.”

These trade-offs can get complex because the sizing of the heating system also depends on how tightly the house is sealed, among many other things. Can a non-architect manage all this? “Yes,” says David, ”but they’ll need the help of experts.” He adds, “It can be a fun learning experience.”

Awesome project, but what about middle-class folks who want to build green? I'd love to see a case study of a green home built for closer to $100/sq ft. I can't afford to drop a half mil for my family home.

When I was building my house 29 years ago, I put in for DOE grant money [that Reagan killed] to perfect more or less the functional equivalent of what was depicted/described in the utility chaseway picture: a gray water heat recovery scheme. I would really like to know more about it, particularly how the grease trap issues are solved. Any grease or fat that hot water can bear away easily, may congeal and adhere to cold surfaces in a heat exchanger.
I wound up shelving that idea and a few others but the superinsulation and the passive solar that I did carry out have stood the test of time...and I have yet to buy a watt of electricity for space heating.

Which leaves the cost of water heating...how much is that gray water heat recapture estimated to save on water heating bills?

5.
Sep 9, 2009 8:01 PM ET

Hello, I am doing a case by Kate Bender

Hello, I am doing a case study for my Sustainable Design masters at Carnegie Mellon University. I was wondering if you have metered data for at least 12 months for your home. Very impressed by your home!

Kate,
You will see energy use data in the sidebar above. The data were also reported in a GBA news story:
"Monitoring data from January 2008 to January 2009 has confirmed that the home’s on-site 10-kW Bergey wind turbine produced 17 kWh more energy than the occupants consumed. While Pill and Maraham used 6,269 kWh of energy (6,094 kWh of electricity and the equivalent of 175 kWh of firewood), the wind turbine produced 6,286 kWh."

7.
Oct 27, 2009 1:43 AM ET

Home Remodeling by Chris Builder

I had fantastic success with a greenhouse kit I assembled for a home in Maine. It took only a weekend to install and now provides fresh vegetables all year round. The hardest bit of the assembly was getting the permit approved by the local neighborhood council, though they are now happy they did seeing as how they benefit from fresh tomatoes in January as a thank-you gift!

8.
Nov 24, 2009 6:30 AM ET

I viewed the profile of David by Mehdi Karroubi

I viewed the profile of David Pill on Linkedin I sent request to him I belong to home insurance company I am interested in LEED Platinum Home.

Willem,
The results of the blower-door test on this house: 500 cfm at 50 Pascals.

To calculate air changes per hour at 50 Pa, we need to do some math -- we need to multiply cfm50 by 60 minutes per hour and divide the product by the building volume, including the basement, measured in cubic feet.

I don't (off the top of my head) have the building volume, but anyone who wants to can estimate it if they want. Here's a guess: each floor has 1,200 square feet; including the basement, the volume of the house might be 28,800 cubic feet. That would mean that the air leakage rate might be about 1.0 ACH @50 Pa.

11.
Jun 15, 2010 7:07 AM ET

house plan by Pierre Goulet

would like to build the same house is the plan available

12.
Aug 7, 2010 10:14 AM ET

Window Leaks by Daniel Ernst

Martin Holladay,

When you covered David Pill's house in the 2008 Energy Design Update, you noted the builder was dealing with minor water infiltration around the windows. The GBA article doesn't mention this issue.

It's unclear to me how the windows were installed and flashed. The GBA specs show that they used housewrap. Was this installed on the exterior of the foam? Did they use anything as a capillary break between the foam and the sheathing? Did they use any type of metal flashing on the window headers, or was it all flexible flashing tape?

It would be interesting to hear what David Pill and Jim Huntington would do differently next time. At the time you wrote the EDU article it didn't look like they had come to any real resolution (or root cause).

I would appreciate any additional information you can provide. Thank you!

Daniel,
I have forwarded your questions to David Pill by e-mail. I'll let you know if he responds.

14.
Oct 4, 2010 7:36 PM ET

roofing contractor by Amy Wise

Would you recommend the roofer that installed the standing seam roof?
i also live in Chittenden county.

15.
Oct 14, 2010 12:51 PM ET

Daniel-
We did apply by David

Daniel-
We did apply housewrap over the exterior side of the foam, there was no capillary break between the foam and the sheathing. We did not use metal flashing over the windows, Thermotech said while that would be an added precautionary measure they were unnecessary. We did use flexible flashing tape. Looking back maybe a capillary break and the metal flashing would have been a good idea.

I am extremely disappointed with Thermotech's windows. Thermotech came out to the house and did determine that five of the large mulled windows were leaking at the mulled joints. They took the mull covers off and recaulked them. They no longer leak. There are still 2 windows upstairs which are leaking, at one point I need to take the trim off and see what is going on. The custom color paint which was an extra completely faded after 2 years and from day one the interior veneer was peeling off the fiberglass. We had to have our painter repair all of the veneer which cost quite a bit. When I originally brought this to Stephen's (the owner) attention he told me that they had used the incorrect type of glue on the veneer and that the paint was a bad mix. He said they would cover the cost of the repairs and would send someone out to repaint the windows on site. I did not want someone site applying paint and just wanted a credit on the custom color which was essentially white now. He has never made good on any of this. Stephen will absolutely not return my calls or emails. While they may have " the worlds most efficient windows" They are also the worlds most unprofessional company, with serious quality control problems and no follow through.

David

16.
Oct 21, 2010 10:47 AM ET

Thank you by Daniel Ernst

David,

I just saw your response. I'm sorry to hear of the poor service / experience with Thermotech. Thank you very much for the feedback and cautionary tale.

17.
Feb 6, 2011 2:57 PM ET

Fiberglass.....REALLY? by Matthew Amann

I wonder why no company in America is building wood aluminum clad windows to the same specs as these fiberglass windows. Once again following the Germans...... Aluminum, wood, cork sound great to me..... fiberglass and vinyl, not so much......getting ready to build a net zero home for a client , glad to get this Thermotech feedback